American Politics Discussion Thread

[greenline]

Well one side is saying they shouldn't be allowed to exist. Saying they SHOULD be allowed to exist doesn't seem radical to me?

This is an absurd framing that makes whoever uses it sound like a complete hack. Transgender and transexual individuals have existed before they became a hot button political topic, and will continue to exist longer after they cease to be. No one has invented a magic weapon that causes them to not exist.

And the question can be turned on you. IT IS a really small issue, so why did Republicans spend 1/3 of their marketing budget on it?

Because it was effective, obviously. The Trump ad that garnered the biggest response from undecided voters was an attack on Komala being in favor of trans issues. Voters clearly signaled that their preference was not being in favor. It's more prudent to ask why the Harris campaign didn't publicly disown the trans issue and promise to ensure that men will not be allowed to compete in women's sports. Especially if this was the most important election ever, with democracy itself being on the line.

I a white male was once in an interview with another white male where the interviewer said "women don't really understand us guys, they just don't get us". The whole finance department was indeed white males. Pretending discrimination doesn't exist, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'll admit its a tricky issue and I don't like a lot of the current solutions. It doesn't mean its NOT an issue though and the solution is to do nothing! My preferred solution is to at least do blind resumes (IE no name) and maybe even blind interviews at least for first round.

The solution is to let people build companies that discriminate however they please, because there is no truly 'blind' way of staffing that satisfies Civil Rights law. Criminal background checks are discriminatory against any group prone to criminal behavior. IQ tests discriminate against low IQ groups. But if those laws were simply repealed, then progressives could simply make their own companies and organizations that explicitly give priority to minority candidates - with the understanding that they cannot enforce those preferences on competitors.

[Mjmd]

You were literally arguing like 3 posts ago that it was a new thing.......

Yes fear and hate are effective weapons. We've went over this; its not new historically. We can use a non racial historical example this time. Those Christians are abnormal! How weird is it they only have 1 God and refuse to worship ours!!!! Its a good thing 2 Roman emperors didn't try to distract from their failings by blaming and persecuting Christians..... As to why she didn't. There weren't any speakers at the DNC that were trans and her only statement during this campaign was in support of their rights and it wasn't a common talking point. So why not completely denounce? Well you can't really virtue signal if you are doing hate speech instead. Its also possible they thought only idiots would believe trans people in womens sports is a common issue / big deal. But maybe they should have given some sort of "leave it to the sports organizations" statement as the average voter doesn't know that in some whole states there are no identified trans people in a woments sport.

Fun fact a lot of orchestras and other musical groups do blind auditions. The # of racial minorities increased. It is fully possible to do resumes without names. Its not required currently and its rarely used, but it is possible and I think a good unbiased way. Most of history is filled with "let people discriminate". It really hasn't been pleasant for those not in the group discriminating. Would you want to be in one of those groups? NO. You are only saying this garbage because you aren't. Also, there is a large difference between discriminating based on qualifications for the job, and you know what race / gender a person is. If you can't operate excel, you can't be an accountant (everywhere I've worked). That is a job qualification. Being a women has nothing to do with if you can operate excel; yet I know of a manager who that mattered to. Its taken pretty much the whole of human history for women to have equal rights and you just want to undo it........... WTF. I've worked in 3 different FP&A orgs and I can tell you its heavily white (and mostly male although I think that is slowly decreasing). My first company had like 50 FP&A folks and I think 2 were black and 1 was hispanic. My 2 companies since were smaller, but between say 40 employees over time 1 was hispanic. Don't worry anti discrimination laws don't work that well, don't get yourself worked up. That is one of the reasons I'm big into the no name resume idea. It feels the fairest and its proven to be somewhat effective.

[BING_XI_LAO]

I may regard transgenderism as a murderous abomination, but I do fully support their presence in women's sports. That's literally the only cool and funny thing that transgenderism has come up with (dumpstering women in a hilariously unfair way) and yet conservatives don't like it? It really annoys me that they have no sense of humour.

[Japper007]

"Genderfluid" did not exist in the past. The progressives who bring it up refer to things like 'two spirits', but don't really understand that a two spirit was a primitive tribe's way of saying, "You are so bad at clubbing seals that you should dress up like a woman and dance to amuse us." Not at all compatible with a progressive worldview, but the vast majority of progressives are morons with no real knowledge of human history or anthropology.

There's many godlike entities that straddle the line between several gender identities. Loki, for an example of the top of my head is both male and female (they give birth to several monsters, but otherwise presnt mostly male).

The bedrock of Western society. The Hellenistic (Greaco-Roman) culture, had very different views on masculinity. For instance, a male presenting individual having sex with many men on the "taking" end was seen as very masculine (and feminine on the "receiving" penetrated end). And a man could be regarded as very sus and effete if he enjoyed sex with lots of women. Julius Ceasar was widely gossiped to be feminine because of his sexual adventures, even though they were all women, when his army chanted "Hide your woman, Ceasar is coming" they were making fun of this fact. And again there are mythological figures that cross the line from one gender identity to an other, like the Amazons or the women who worshiped through reckless abandon in several cults.

In Western Theatre, from the Greeks to Shakespeare, female roles were portrayed by men in drag. And there's a centuries old tradition of people with fringe gender/sexual identities to use the theatre to live authentically (also fun fact, singular they was coined by, or at least popularised through, Shakespeare, much as that pronoun is now somehow very upsetting and surprising to conservatives who claim to have read all his work)

In the Early modern period, men peacocking around flamboyantly in colourful clothes that would make the weird theatre kid (there it is again, nothing new under the sun after all) in your highschool blush, were seen as the height of masculinity. As were men who cried and quoted poetry.

Also that view on Two Spirit is not only vile, but also wrong. Two spirit people are highly respected in native communities. But then again you don't even have to look at cultures outside the western to see, as I've showed above. I know because I actually completed one of those "woke" classes you guys are always so scared of.  (by far the best of my history major)

[greenline]

You were literally arguing like 3 posts ago that it was a new thing.......

Politically, it is. When you claim that conservatives want trans individuals not to exist, what exactly are you referring to? Their physical existence? Their political influence, their ability to enter opposite sex sports and demand other people respect their chosen pronouns?

So why not completely denounce? Well you can't really virtue signal if you are doing hate speech instead. Its also possible they thought only idiots would believe trans people in womens sports is a common issue / big deal. But maybe they should have given some sort of "leave it to the sports organizations" statement as the average voter doesn't know that in some whole states there are no identified trans people in a woments sport.

The average voter knows that men in women's sports isn't a national issue. They also know that voting for the democrats means enabling a lot of federal cabinet and administrative picks who will put pressure on any state holdouts to let men compete in womens sports. The Kamala team, if they were truly dedicated to winning at all costs to preserve democracy, easily could have denounced the issue in public statements.

I also think the Kamala team was not solely dedicated to winning at all costs. I think the team itself is composed of many far left staffers who would revolt and throw shit if they actually did anything like I am proposing. But that means voting for an ostensibly 'centrist' candidate means putting up with far left policies in actuality.

Fun fact a lot of orchestras and other musical groups do blind auditions. The # of racial minorities increased. It is fully possible to do resumes without names. Its not required currently and its rarely used, but it is possible and I think a good unbiased way. Most of history is filled with "let people discriminate".

Blind auditions don't solve the problem I describe. Suppose that some orchestra does blind auditions, but doesn't end up hiring a "desirable" number of minorities, like whichever study claims it will. The default assumption under current law is that this orchestra doing blind auditions is therefore practicing discriminatory hiring, and must resort to the usual measures: hiring an ever growing percentage of minority candidates regardless of their desirability, and hiring an ever growing number of HR administrators who subject employees to obnoxious and tedious propaganda, but guard against lawsuits. It's part of the reason for how you get graphs like this:





The historical standard is not letting people discriminate; it's setting an explicit basis for discrimination. Nobility gets to pick on peasants, peasants get to pick on merchants, and everyone picks on slaves. Going back in American history would be setting explicit standards for discrimination, rather than leaving it on the basis of self determination. Bringing back city quarters could go a long way.

[Mjmd]

You literally brought it up as an issue, so I think most voters don't know. Which is part of the problem. In general this is a problem Democrats have. Facts don't mean much. The other part is that people just generally don't like things they don't understand. You've acknowledged before that hating on the "other" is an effective political tactic, its ok to do so again.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say those graphs have multiple factors going into them. Its almost absurd to jump to your conclusions from them. The current laws are literally only enforceable IF you can prove you weren't selected, because of your race or gender. You aren't even knowledgable of the laws. You assume they do things they don't. Did that manager get in trouble when I reported his discrimination? Absolutely not. Its some random interviewers word vs their managers. Now there are some organizations that do strive for a mix, but you know that is because they were very very white before or again virtue signalling; its good marketing. Sure my companies I stated were "diverse" and advertised themselves as such, but a lot of the diversity was in lower paying crappier jobs.

Would you be so against anti discrimination laws if you had been discriminated against because of your skin color or gender? NO NO NO. Therefore don't do it to others. FINE you don't like the current solutions, try different ones. The answer isn't let people get shit on again.

[greenline]

You literally brought it up as an issue, so I think most voters don't know.

Most voters know that the issue that is really being discussed is whether progressives and trans individuals can browbeat everyone else into accepting the sports issues, the bathroom issues, and the pronouns.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say those graphs have multiple factors going into them. Its almost absurd to jump to your conclusions from them. The current laws are literally only enforceable IF you can prove you weren't selected, because of your race or gender. You aren't even knowledgable of the laws. You assume they do things they don't.

The EEOC filed suit against a convenience store chain for using criminal background checks on its workers:

https://csnews.com/eeoc-suit-impacts-more-just-sheetz

You may not know that the law is used in this way, but it is.

Civil rights ligitation isn't the only reason for the massive growth in administrative to labor ratios, but certainly it's a big factor.

Would you be so against anti discrimination laws if you had been discriminated against because of your skin color or gender? NO NO NO. Therefore don't do it to others. FINE you don't like the current solutions, try different ones. The answer isn't let people get shit on again.

There was recently a supreme court ruling over the fact that colleges were discriminating because of skin color and gender. Under law that is supposed to stop discrimination. Perhaps said law is not working as intended?

[Mjmd]

So lets be clear, are they allowed to exist? If they are, do we treat them as people. I mean yes. The sports issue is pretty much a non issue, BUT as long as the sports org allows for whatever it is seems fine. Again, for instances where the sports org bans performance enhancing drugs (IE serious competitive levels), then ya it might make sense. But you just want to play for fun? Whats the harm? If they exist they have to use a bathroom. This is going to surprise you, but humans need to use the bathroom. Is it more awkward for to force someone who is dressed as a women to use the mens bathroom or let them use a womens. My personal favorite solution as someone with small children is just more family bathrooms (IE single non gender ones with a changing table). I had someone ask me to use a different pronoun once. IT KILLED ME. I'M DYING!!!!!! Its such a minor inconvenience. Again, do you feel weird. Sure. Did it harm me? No. Get over yourself. Now do some places and events go overboard with it, sure, but again it isn't hurting you. Does the government need to get involved in stopping something that is making you uncomfortable? Again, my main issue as someone who doesn't get it and makes me feel uncomfortable is  "why is the government involved in this". Answer that question. If you don't want the government involved when hundreds of thousands people dying, but you care that trans people exist and need to use bathrooms, you are not only hypocritical but need to get your priorities straight.

Making me do legal reading! Actually kind of fun, but draining on time. Its more complicated that that article presents. IE its an outrage article. Here is more of the meat of why it was filed.

While acknowledging the company’s practices weren’t racially motivated, the agency took issue with the absence of any kind of appeals process for candidates to provide additional information that could shed light on their past conviction.

“Job applicants [have no procedure] to provide Defendants with any additional information that either Defendants or the applicants deem relevant,” the agency says in the complaint.

So the EEOC just wants a change in hiring procedure and wants an appeals process so that if the conviction isn't related to the job duties they can still be considered. IE situations like "was it for small amount of weed 10 years ago?".

That was colleges setting their own rules, not current government law. It was an understandable ruling. Again, I'm not saying "proportional ethnicity"  is the answer. Its not the current law either. I actually find this whole argument funny because you think the law does too much and I think its ineffective. There is a reason I have an uncommon talking point of no name resumes / admissions / ect as more of a legitimate answer. How do we try to fairly allow for opportunity? Its a tricky question and I'm not saying my answer is the answer, but I think its better than current. Again, the answer is not to let discrimination to run rampant, which seems to be your solution.

[BING_XI_LAO]

"Genderfluid" did not exist in the past. The progressives who bring it up refer to things like 'two spirits', but don't really understand that a two spirit was a primitive tribe's way of saying, "You are so bad at clubbing seals that you should dress up like a woman and dance to amuse us." Not at all compatible with a progressive worldview, but the vast majority of progressives are morons with no real knowledge of human history or anthropology.

There's many godlike entities that straddle the line between several gender identities. Loki, for an example of the top of my head is both male and female (they give birth to several monsters, but otherwise presnt mostly male).

The bedrock of Western society. The Hellenistic (Greaco-Roman) culture, had very different views on masculinity. For instance, a male presenting individual having sex with many men on the "taking" end was seen as very masculine (and feminine on the "receiving" penetrated end). And a man could be regarded as very sus and effete if he enjoyed sex with lots of women. Julius Ceasar was widely gossiped to be feminine because of his sexual adventures, even though they were all women, when his army chanted "Hide your woman, Ceasar is coming" they were making fun of this fact. And again there are mythological figures that cross the line from one gender identity to an other, like the Amazons or the women who worshiped through reckless abandon in several cults.

In Western Theatre, from the Greeks to Shakespeare, female roles were portrayed by men in drag. And there's a centuries old tradition of people with fringe gender/sexual identities to use the theatre to live authentically (also fun fact, singular they was coined by, or at least popularised through, Shakespeare, much as that pronoun is now somehow very upsetting and surprising to conservatives who claim to have read all his work)

In the Early modern period, men peacocking around flamboyantly in colourful clothes that would make the weird theatre kid (there it is again, nothing new under the sun after all) in your highschool blush, were seen as the height of masculinity. As were men who cried and quoted poetry.

Also that view on Two Spirit is not only vile, but also wrong. Two spirit people are highly respected in native communities. But then again you don't even have to look at cultures outside the western to see, as I've showed above. I know because I actually completed one of those "woke" classes you guys are always so scared of.  (by far the best of my history major)

So first I'm crazy for calling it Satanic and then a few posts later you're tracing it back to Loki, that perverse traitor who will side with our great enemy the Giants at Ragnarok - and Dionisiac cults. How was I wrong?
I guess I was also being hypocritical calling it both made-up 10 years ago and part of an age-old demonic agenda, to be fair - but the explanation is that satanic concepts were suppressed for centuries and even millenia in Christendom, with transgenderism resurfacing in its modern form only under the Weimar Republic.

Classical pre-Christian views on homosexuality were basically accurate and sensible. They looked down on it, and they would hardly look to dilute the definition of marriage by including same-sex relations, but I doubt they ever stoned people in a semitic-style religious frenzy, either. Caesar's womanising being made fun of sounds more like a prototype of the modern internet 'coomer' meme. Romans had intense honour and discipline, which applied also to marriage and suchlike, so naturally they would look down on, or at least make fun of, an excess of lasciviousness. How exactly do you fit the modern trans concept into that?

Female roles were presented by men in theater for the sake of propriety. If the Taliban loosened up enough to hold theatre shows, quite possibly they'd do the same thing. Invoking this as a gender-bending exercise is absurd because it's actually reflective of a society which has maintained a high standard of modesty for its women. I wear highly flamboyant clothes today, and I think that it's men who should wear such outfits, not women. And I would prefer men to present female roles, too. I find it extremely annoying to have female news presenters who are dolled up and dressed to be attractive, and the only women I'll willingly watch or listen to (f. ex. on Youtube) are well past menopause. It's just distracting and inappropriate otherwise. I don't want to see a woman's cleavage unless I can shove my hands down there. It's really wrong that women are allowed to exert psychological pressure on men with immodest clothing.

[greenline]

So lets be clear, are they allowed to exist? If they are, do we treat them as people. I mean yes. The sports issue is pretty much a non issue, BUT as long as the sports org allows for whatever it is seems fine. Again, for instances where the sports org bans performance enhancing drugs (IE serious competitive levels), then ya it might make sense. But you just want to play for fun? Whats the harm? If they exist they have to use a bathroom. This is going to surprise you, but humans need to use the bathroom. Is it more awkward for to force someone who is dressed as a women to use the mens bathroom or let them use a womens. My personal favorite solution as someone with small children is just more family bathrooms (IE single non gender ones with a changing table). I had someone ask me to use a different pronoun once. IT KILLED ME. I'M DYING!!!!!! Its such a minor inconvenience. Again, do you feel weird. Sure. Did it harm me? No. Get over yourself. Now do some places and events go overboard with it, sure, but again it isn't hurting you. Does the government need to get involved in stopping something that is making you uncomfortable? Again, my main issue as someone who doesn't get it and makes me feel uncomfortable is  "why is the government involved in this". Answer that question.

You have the situation backwards. Wind the clock back 20 years, and sports team and bathrooms alike were segregated by sex. The general population had an understanding of the definition of sex that was backed by folk wisdom, common sense, and science alike. It was the small minority of trans activists who felt uncomfortable with this situation, who then took it upon themselves to lobby for the expansion of trans rights, first in academia and then in government, despite their proposals being unpopular. The normal people voting Trump are not the ones forcing the inconvenience, it is the tiny minority of trans and progressives forcing these inconveniences on them. How democratic!

So the EEOC just wants a change in hiring procedure and wants an appeals process so that if the conviction isn't related to the job duties they can still be considered. IE situations like "was it for small amount of weed 10 years ago?".

The EEOC admitted that the decision to use criminal background checks was not racial profiling. They still demand change, even though the company is not doing racial profiling, or profiling of any protected class. Your logic is that the EEOC is free to sue companies even if they are not breaking the law, if the company is doing something that makes a progressive feel bad.

That was colleges setting their own rules, not current government law. It was an understandable ruling. Again, I'm not saying "proportional ethnicity"  is the answer. Its not the current law either. I actually find this whole argument funny because you think the law does too much and I think its ineffective. There is a reason I have an uncommon talking point of no name resumes / admissions / ect as more of a legitimate answer. How do we try to fairly allow for opportunity? Its a tricky question and I'm not saying my answer is the answer, but I think its better than current. Again, the answer is not to let discrimination to run rampant, which seems to be your solution.

The supreme court ruling said that discrimination was running rampant in college admissions, under current law. After the ruling, little seems to have changed.